Blurring the Boundary between Fact and Fiction

The Case of Matti Kuusela

By Maria Lassila-Merisalo

The media in Finland stirred on Friday, 22 March 2024, when the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Aamulehti announced that they had removed all articles written by their retired, award-winning journalist, Matti Kuusela.[1] Kuusela had just published a book, a combination of memoir and anthology, and confessed to fabricating events in some of his stories. In the book he identified three individual stories and explained how he had invented elements to them.

At the height of the scandal, Kuusela especially angered feature journalists by saying in an interview with the Finnish Broadcasting Company that he practiced narrative journalism, and by suggesting that Aamulehti’s leadership might not have even heard of feature journalism. The outrage was understandable. As the media’s role as a gatekeeper has fractured and the information environment grown chaotic, a natural reaction among journalists has been to retreat behind rigorously verified information. During the recent years, narrative journalism in Finnish mainstream media has been written with great care, confirming even the smallest details.

The event broke the news not only in Finland but also internationally, especially in northern parts of Europe.[2] I digested the news over the night and wrote a blog post on the following day, using my research experience in narrative journalism, trying to interpret and provide context to what had happened. I also gave an interview to a trade journal. On Monday the editor-in-chief of Aamulehti called me and asked me to investigate the case: to read and examine all the removed articles and look for signs of fabrication. On Tuesday I accepted the offer.

The investigation officially began on 8 April 2024. I received the material–556 stories–and had until 18 June to complete the task. Four days later, Aamulehti found an additional 66 stories. After removing duplicates, the final set comprised 607 stories. They had been published between 2015 and 2023. Although Kuusela retired in 2020, he continued contributing as a freelance writer. Some older stories had also been republished. I read each story at least twice. In addition, I interviewed around 30 people, mainly Kuusela’s interviewees and former colleagues. As the interviews were confidential, this text is based solely on the observations I made while analyzing the stories.

A very thorough fact-checking for each story was not possible due to the tight schedule, and some stories couldn’t even be checked since the interviewees had died or were beyond reach. I discussed some stories with Matti Kuusela, and he was helpful and cooperative.

This text is based on my article published in Finnish in June 2024.[3]

Typical features of Kuusela’s texts

The stories by Kuusela included in the investigation material focused primarily on culture—particularly literature and theater. There were also series of local reportage, such as Kuusela’s cycling trips in Pirkanmaa region and his walks along the most populated streets of Tampere, and some international reportage. However, it was practically impossible to name genres for Kuusela’s stories, because they typically included characteristics of several genres.

A common feature of Kuusela’s stories was strong presence; the stories looked at the world through reporter-narrator Matti Kuusela’s eyes. Also foregrounded and playful use of language was typical. There were lots of associative elements, intertextual references and quotations. It was obvious that Kuusela is a well-read man, and he also confessed in his memoir that he has used “frequent and unannounced references to fictional works”.[4]

The world in Kuusela’s texts was black and white: people and things were typically either good or bad. He did not avoid taking a stand and choosing the side of the weak. His humanistic and leftist worldview was evident not only in explicitly opinionated texts, such as columns, but also in reportage and other types of writing where strong ideological stance is not typically present.

Overall, the material contained a remarkable amount of content open to interpretation. Exaggeration was typical of Kuusela, such as “all that is beautiful and important happens on a bus between Nokia and Tampere.” Sarcasm and irony are notoriously difficult forms of expression, and Kuusela employed them as well.

Moreover, Kuusela’s toolkit included fabrication, which I found in a small portion of the whole material. A part of it was obvious, such as Kuusela’s conversations with trees, lakes, animals, or dead people. Some fabrications were revealed in the text, such as in the following example:

Yes, what do we, men from Nokia, talk about in the swimming hall sauna?

Loneliness, the yearning for touch and tenderness, the fear of losing an erection, the horror of death, the importance of a friend, poetry… Just pulling your leg, not even the Jyräänmäki water tower is going to believe this. We talk about nothing. (Example 1)

There was also fabrication that the reader was expected to recognize–for instance when Kuusela was walking in a forest near Tampere and casually mentioned that he took a lot of photos but didn’t have the time to take a photograph of the huge male bear because he had to play dead. There was no bear in the forest, Kuusela confessed to me; that was left for the reader to figure out.

In conclusion, it is safe to say that Kuusela’s journalism was far from normative news journalism. As a narrator he was ambiguous and mischievous, and this should not have come as a surprise to anyone who had read his stories.

Kuusela’s relation with fact and fiction

Matti Kuusela has described on many occasions his relations with fact and fiction. In his book he states for instance that “a sense of possibility is more important for a writer than a sense of reality”[5], and that “when you repeat a certain story long enough you start to believe it yourself and it almost becomes true”[6]. During his visit in Nokia library on 25 April 2024 Kuusela said that he couldn’t pick himself away from what he had read in literature. He also said that “fabrication always wins the reality”. Kuusela himself and some of his colleagues have described that Kuusela played with the readers and wrote stories that could be possible.

Matti Kuusela does not have journalist education, and he has little experience in news journalism. It appears that despite his forty plus years of work experience he had not assimilated all basic principles of journalistic work, such as referencing to sources, and the ethics of dialogue. For instance, he wrote a story about Masai Ujiri who played basketball in Nokia, Finland, and ended up as the CEO of Toronto Raports. The end of the story looks as if he had interviewed Ujiri. In reality, he translated the interview from two individual English internet sources. The perfect tense implies that the discussion did not take place recently, but the original sources are not mentioned.

Kuusela spoke to readers

Matti Kuusela had a vast readership, particularly people in Tampere region who had read Kuusela’s stories for decades. Many of them recognized his stories as a genre of its own and said that they were able to distinguish the mischiefs and the playful fabrications.

Kuusela’s personal perspective in his stories resonated with many readers. Traveling through the region and writing about ordinary people and their daily lives felt far more meaningful to them than traditional news journalism. Kuusela also wrote numerous stories in which he interviewed children, approaching them with appreciation and a natural ease, something not often seen in the media.

Matti Kuusela poured much of himself into his stories, openly sharing personal issues and occasionally casting himself in a critical light. This vulnerability likely made him feel relatable and important to many readers. However, some dismissed his writing as irritating or self-centered.

In addition to a generational divide, the Kuusela scandal also revealed a geographical rift: many long-time readers in the Tampere region were amused by the outspoken criticism from people in the capital area, who clearly did not grasp the phenomenon. Others, however, took offense, feeling the criticism diminished both the Aamulehti tradition and their identity as readers.

 

What was Kuusela’s journalism like?

In the midst of the scandal there was much talk about what journalism is. Many statements actually focused on defining news journalism rather than journalism. Journalism is a concept changing in time and space, and constructed discursively, and journalism is a much broader concept than news journalism.

I recognized signs of gonzo journalism in Kuusela’s stories: for instance, a distinctive participatory narrator, exaggeration, and satire – as well as fabrication. Crónicas published in e.g. Spanish and Portuguese journalism have similarities with Kuusela’s stories. In Finnish context I find Kuusela to be on the same continuum with Esa Kero; they both share the humanism and the perceptiveness and see the value of an ordinary human.[7] And, going way back in time, I noticed that in the early 20^th century there was a pseudonym Kaapro who wrote causeries that share many elements with Kuusela’s stories.

The concept of journalism has narrowed during the span of Kuusela’s career. In the 20^th century, before the internet era began, journalistic narration was more versatile, and media content was more diverse. At the beginning of the 21st century, Aamulehti’s main section focused on news journalism, while the appendices featured more creative and experimental content. The printed newspaper and the online replica had a coherent layout which guided the readers’ interpretation.

Currently journalistic content is created using ever more equipment and published in various channels (text, audio, video, social media platforms), but at the same time journalistic storytelling has become more uniform. The stories are often fairly formulaic, and the language is mainly straightforward standard language. As a result, especially articles independently published online under established media brands are, in the eyes of the reader, assumed to be factual and produced according to journalistic standards—unless there is a clear indication to think otherwise. Whereas other journalists changed their working methods over time, Kuusela appears to have continued operating under the same standards he adopted at the beginning of his career in the 1980s. The main problem was that Aamulehti published Kuusela’s stories online as if they represented basic news journalism, and did not give readers enough guidance in interpreting them.

Aamulehti was responsible

During my investigation I did not find any indication that Kuusela had intentionally mislead the editorial staff or the readers, let alone sought advantage through his actions. Although the material reviewed in the investigation represents only a narrow sample of Kuusela’s overall body of work, it is reasonable to believe that his style and working practices have remained essentially consistent throughout his career.

Kuusela’s stories were published in Aamulehti for over 40 years, and prior to his retirement he was continuously employed by the newspaper. If his supervisors had wished to address his working methods or the content of his stories, they would have had opportunity to do so. However, there was rarely any critical discussion about his stories. On the contrary, Kuusela was both recognized and respected as a journalist, and his stories were marketed under his name. He had a mandate to carry out his journalism in his own way. Therefore, the primary responsibility lies with the editors-in-chief of Aamulehti over the course of his long career.

What is there to learn?

Aamulehti drew its own conclusions and made their internal plans after my investigation was completed. In addition, I called for a broader, media critical discussion. It is easy to be outraged on social media and condemn a single journalist for his mistakes, but many common and accepted journalistic practices exist in ethical grey areas. For instance, headlines are often irresponsible clickbait, and analytics seem to drive editorial decisions. Emotional, individual narratives are published without critique, without considering whose stories are left untold. Perspectives are chosen without acknowledging one’s own positionality.

In Finland, trust in the media and other traditional sources of knowledge remains high by international standards—but polarization is growing here as well.[8] An increasing number of people feel that the media neither represents nor speaks to them. The media must work to earn the public’s trust. Every journalistic process involves countless conscious and unconscious choices—many of them far subtler and harder to detect than what the journalists’ basic ethical guidelines account for.

Audiences have diverse needs when engaging with media, and receiving up-to-date information is only one of them—users also seek to understand, to act, and to feel. While this is well known among us literary journalism scholars, many news journalists are still coming to terms with it. Matti Kuusela managed to connect with readers in a way that impersonal news reporting cannot. I hope the controversy does not lead to excessive caution or playing it safe. Journalism can encompass many genres, experiments, and surprises. Deviations are not forbidden—they simply need to be communicated openly to the reader.

It is also worth considering what role the media wants to take amid declining literacy and the rise of disinformation and misinformation. What happens if stories are shortened and narratives simplified because it is assumed that people will not read or cannot interpret them? Should there not still be room in journalism for intellectually challenging the reader—and if so, how can this be done responsibly and ethically?

Bio: Maria Lassila-Merislo has a Ph.D. in Journalism and is a Docent in (Journalistic) Writing at the University of Jyväskylä and in Communication at the University of Helsinki. Maria has worked as a journalist and published hundreds of newspaper and magazine stories. As a researcher she has published both academic texts and professional articles.

—

Example 1: Toimittaja Matti Kuusela pyöräili paikkaan, jossa hän ei tunne ketään – ensin hän eksyi, mutta sitten löytyi maailman kaunein maisema [Journalist Matti Kuusela cycled to a place where he didn’t know anyone – at first he got lost, but then he discovered the most beautiful scenery in the world], Aamulehti, 3 September 2023.

Example 2: Liian huono BC Nokiaan, nyt NBA:n mestari – Masai Ujirin uskomaton tarina, jossa kaksio Ilkantiellä Nokialla on tärkeässä roolissa [Once not good enough for BC Nokia, now an NBA champion – the incredible story of Masai Ujiri, in which a two bedroom apartment on Ilkantie in Nokia plays a key role], Aamulehti, 14 June 2019.

---

[1] For an English report of the events as the news broke, see https://www.cjr.org/analysis/the-finnish-fabulist.php. In 2024 Aamulehti had a total reach of 674,800 which made it the second largest regional newspaper in Finland. To those long-time members who attended IALJS-8 in Tampere in 2013: Aamulehti is published in Tampere and they donated the tote bags for the conference.

[2] Stories were published for instance in Sweden (https://www.dn.se/varlden/journalist-hittade-pa-intervjuer-tidning-raderar-551-artiklar/), Belgium (https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2024/03/25/fins-journalist/), and the Netherlands (https://nos.nl/artikel/2514094-finse-journalist-geeft-in-biografie-toe-artikelen-deels-te-hebben-verzonnen).

[3] Haapanen, L., & Lassila-Merisalo, M. (2025). Yleisön luottamus journalismiin: Toimittajien näkemyksiä luottamusta vahvistavista ja heikentävistä ilmiöistä ja toimintatavoista. [Public Trust in Journalism: Journalists’ Insights into the Factors and Practices that Reinforce or Undermine Credibility]. Media & viestintä, 48(2), 244–256. https://doi.org/10.23983/mv.162821

[4] Kuusela, M. (2024). Journalisti. Toisenlainen toimittaja. [Journalist: A Different Kind of Reporter]. Warelia, 225.

[5] Kuusela, M. (2024). Journalisti. Toisenlainen toimittaja, 233

[6] Kuusela, M. (2024). Journalisti. Toisenlainen toimittaja, 104.

[7] Lassila-Merisalo, M. (2010). Exploring the Reality Boundary of Esa Kero. Literary Journalism Studies 2(1), 39–47. https://s35767.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/041-049-LJS_v2n1.pdf

[8] Reunanen, E. (2024). Finland. Reuters Digital News Report 2024. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024/finland